Dave's Diary

Daily Readings: Acts 18 and Psalm 86

Personally, it seems to me that when Paul met Aquila and Priscilla in Corinth, they were not yet believers in the Lord Jesus. Had they been, I’m sure Luke would have been described them as “a believer named Aquila and his wife, Priscilla”, rather than “a Jew named Aquila”. I’m convinced that all they had in common at this stage was their trade as tentmakers and their Jewish heritage.

But Paul befriended them and they began to work together. Through working alongside a strong Christian with a faith as contagious as Paul’s was, these two were drawn to their own personal faith in Jesus. Not only that, but it seems they were exposed to such solid Christian teaching during this season that later they were in a position to take the visiting preacher Apollos aside to “explain to him the way of God more adequately”. Paul had clearly discipled and taught his two friends very well.

Canadian minister TT Shields wrote for ‘Daily Bread’: “(The) good thing about friendship evangelism is that almost every Christian can get involved with it. We can make friends of unsaved neighbors. We can get a friendship going with non-Christian work partners, even unsaved relatives and acquaintances with whom we’ve had little contact for years. This isn’t hard to do. The world is full of lonely people. Many will react warmly to someone who reaches out to them. And you don’t even have to worry about how you’re going to handle the witnessing part of this effort. That will come naturally.” (Read his very helpful post in full, here)

Life application: Who has God strategically brought alongside you in your workplace or neighbourhood? Who is He calling you to befriend and draw to Christ through your own contagious faith? Godly, gracious Christian friendship is one of the most powerful forms of ‘evangelism’ known to humanity. Why not start deliberately exercising this special ministry today.